


Greenwood

by HariSlate



Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: Angst, Depression, Episode: s05e16 Doctor Bashir I Presume, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Literary References, M/M, Optimistic Ending, Pre-Slash, bashir is sad, garak is sad, maurice - em forster, maybe they can be friends again?, stealth dirk gently reference?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-09
Updated: 2019-05-09
Packaged: 2020-02-29 05:57:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 686
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18772627
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HariSlate/pseuds/HariSlate
Summary: Garak and Bashir are both trapped, in their own ways.





	Greenwood

**Author's Note:**

> Hi I'm hari and I like literary references

_"Men of my sort could take to the greenwood."_

__

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_"Is that so? I was not aware."_

__

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_"Oh, it's only my own notion,"_

\--

The "Final Frontier." The irony.

On Cardassia, freedom was an idle concept. It was very Federation, as much as root beer and idealism. He could not imagine anybody in Starfleet saw the irony of their precious 'final frontier'. Final freedom.

Garak watched out of the Promenade window as the wormhole spat someone out. Cardassian, Bajoran. Neither of them had anything left. Both of their domains had been conquered. And here they were now. Prophets thank the Federation.

He managed not to spit. Odo would know, and likely never forgive him. He had few friends now, he could not afford to spit them out on the Promenade floor.

\--

His parents had given him the ability to process many streams of thought at once. For him, there was no question of just thinking of seven other things until his worries slipped away. He didn't have to listen to recall every word they said.

And so, he did not listen to his parents as they sat across from him at the table. Some part of him answered, he was sure. But Julian was not there.

With his parents on the station, the chance of him retaining his freedom dropped with every second. So he stared, he breathed, he tried not to shout. The sooner they left, the better. The sooner it could all go down.

For he was found out already. Inevitably, now they were here.

Without really thinking, he said something surely inadvisable and walked out. He should be more careful. Nobody was his friend.

\--

He was without a home. But where did he have that wasn't as much a prison as Deep Space Nine? With Dukat as his guard, Tain his judge from beyond the grave.

This tiny, frozen disc was his ideal prison though; and if he truly wished to escape, only the "freedom" of space could save him.

And as soon as he could be aware, he stood in front of an airlock. It would be so easy.

"Garak?" Damn. "Garak, what are you doing here?"

"Why, my dear Doctor, how good to see you!" He turned that calm smile on the doctor, to see his too open face reflecting what Garak hid.

Damn him, The boy couldn't look at him like that.

\--

Bashir knew full well why Garak was there. As well as the spy could hide his emotions, he hadn't. The Cardassian had let his guard down.

"Would you like to get a drink?"

"Thank you Doctor, but not tonight."

"I really think we should catch up."

"Doctor..."

\--

"We were friends once, Garak."

"I like to think so, my dear."

"Then please, just this once, for old times." He did not recognise the look on the young human's face. "Give me somewhere to go tonight."

Garak stared at him, nodded, walked to his quarters.

He knew the mistake he was making, but the good doctor looked more lost than he had any right to. Trapped, somehow. And yes, they had once been friends. And while that had surely passed, maybe it could mean something again.

Bashir almost fell onto the nearest chair. He did not speak. "Doctor?"

"If I said this was to be the last time we met," still, he did not look at Garak. "What would you say?"

"Doctor..."

"What would you do?"

"Julian,"

"Elim."

Garak found a half full bottle of Kanar. Now was not the time for synthahol. He poured out two glasses, and he had never seen Bashir drink so fast. Then he stood.

"Goodbye, Elim."

"No." His steps stopped. Garak stared at a man lost in freedom. Apparently nowhere to go.

\--

To escape to the greenwood. Quite the concept. And Bashir had thought that this was it. Nowhere, a backwater. Frontier medicine. Who would care? Maybe though, there were other greenwoods. Truer. Less scarred with war.

"'We'll meet in your boathouse yet,'" Bashir whispered, daring. Garak stared. Bashir walked back, didn't sit, didn't smile, just stared back. Lost. Trapped. Scared.

But now, maybe, with promise.

**Author's Note:**

> So I know I am really mixing coding/analogies here? But A) I love Maurice and my literature degree is only useful for writing Bashir/Garak fic appparentlu, B) I was thinking more the imagery in Maurice of a total disconnect between the internal and external self, and C) it's my fic.


End file.
